Heidi J. Larson, Lady Piot is an American

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and the founding director of the

Vaccine Confidence Project The Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP) founded in 2010 by Heidi Larson, was developed in response to hesitancy and misinformation on vaccination programmes such as those that caused a boycott of polio eradication efforts in Northern Nigeria in 20 ...

. Larson headed Global Immunisation Communication at

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

and she is the author of '' Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start and Why They Don't Go Away''. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.

Education and early career

The daughter of a priest and civil rights advocate, Larson grew up in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. Larson worked for

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization. It was founded in the UK in 1919; its goal is to improve the lives of children worldwide. The organization raises money to imp ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank is located on the western bank of the Jordan River and is the larger of the two Palestinian territories (the other being the Gaza Strip) that make up the State of Palestine. A landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

and in

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

after college. Working abroad got her interested in anthropology and she eventually graduated from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

in that discipline. She earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1990. She worked for several companies in the 1990s, including

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

and

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

Work in immunisation

Larson went back to UNICEF in 2000, working on global communications for several of the agency's vaccination programs. She developed an expertise on working with local health workers to defuse rumors that threatened to derail vaccination initiatives. She founded the

at the

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The institu ...

, which she still runs as of 2020, in addition to teaching anthropology, Risk and Decision Science. Since 2015, Larson has been leading a

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

project to support vaccination efforts in

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

and

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

, identifying and countering rumours that may reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. After working on ebola vaccination, the group is now debunking myths about the flu and

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. Larson is Director of European Initiatives at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. Amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, she co-chaired (alongside J. Stephen Morrison) the CSIS-LSHTM High-Level Panel on Vaccine Confidence and Misinformation in 2020. Describing herself as "a patient optimist", Larson understood early that significant efforts had to be made to fight misinformation about vaccines. Former UNICEF Executive Director

Carol Bellamy Carol Bellamy (born January 14, 1942) is an American nonprofit executive and former politician. She is chair of the board of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF). Previously, she was director of the Peace Corps, executive ...

said Larson "wasn't yelling 'The sky is falling', she was yelling, 'The sky could fall if we don't do something'". In a paper published in February 2021, Larson acknowledged extensive collaboration with, advisory board membership of, and funding from, vaccine manufacturers, especially the pharmaceutical companies

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

and Merck & Co. Inc. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.

Other activities

* Virchow Prize for Global Health, Member of the Council (2022–present)Council
�Virchow Prize for Global Health.

Personal life

Larson is married to the Belgian virologist

Peter Piot Sir Peter Karel, Baron Piot (born 17 February 1949) is a Belgian-British microbiologist known for his research into Ebola and AIDS. After helping discover the Ebola virus in 1976 and leading efforts to contain the first-ever recorded Ebola epide ...

Selected publications

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Larson, Heidi 1957 births Living people 20th-century American anthropologists 21st-century American anthropologists 21st-century American women Academics of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine American women anthropologists University of California, Berkeley alumni Harvard College alumni American women academics Kent School alumni Vaccination advocates